UK: Fully jabbed people no longer to isolate after Covid contact

By Raúl Bobé

London, Aug 16 (EFE).- Fully vaccinated people in England will from Monday no longer have to self-isolate for 10 days if they come in contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19.

“From Monday we can take another huge step back towards our normal lives by removing self-isolation requirements for double-jabbed people who are contacts of people with Covid-19,” Health Secretary Sajid Javid said.

The move is a relief for Britons who became victims of the so-called ‘pingdemic,’ the national health care’s tracing system that “pinged” anyone who had been in contact with a positive case in the last five days, at a two meter distance and for more than 15 minutes.

But the algorithm meant people simply taking public transport or going to a restaurant with the app turned on would most likely be “pinged” and forced to quarantine for 10 days.

In July, the number of people notified by the NHS app hit a record of 689,313 in just one week, many of which were glitches.

The ‘pingdemic’ wave led to many people having to take time off work or miss important events, like Kevin Chapman, who got “pinged” just days before his brother’s wedding after eating out at a restaurant.

“We were well spaced apart in there, ordered and paid by a mobile app, didn’t mingle with anyone and the table was cleaned before and after us,” Chapman wrote on Twitter.

Businesses also suffered from the excessive notifications which forced staff to miss work or customers to make last minute cancellations.

“What we see happening really,really often with the pingdemic is that there are a lot of last minute cancellations within the business, (…) this has been affecting the business quite badly,” Giusseppe Stefanizzi, manager of an Italian restaurant in London, told Efe.